People are celebrating my festival, and I'm in chains

Today's push is quite special

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Since 2012, August 12th of each year has been designated as World Elephant Day.

The elephant is the largest extant land animal in the world. After other companions have become extinct, there are only three members of the elephant family: Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana) and African forest elephant (L. cyclotis). Their situation is not optimistic. In the IUCN Red List, Asian elephants and African savanna elephants are at the endangered level, and African forest elephants are even more dangerous and critically endangered.

Elephants are amazing. In the natural environment, elephants have their own social order. Each baby elephant lives with its mother for the first eight years of its life. The basis of this order is their extremely high cognitive level and memory. However, this memory also imprints pain in their bodies. Baby elephants who have witnessed their parents being killed may show high aggression and abnormal fright reactions. We don't know what the baby elephants in the zoo who were forced to be separated from their mothers at an early age and survived under the hooks and electric prods of the trainers will remember in their long elephant lives.

Or, on the basis of resisting animal performances, we may also raise new questions: Can zoos with limited space really meet the needs of elephants for space activities and group living habits? Are they really suitable for elephants to live in?

Author: Jian Er

Painting: Dalin Za

Editor: Mai Mai

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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